Biérevolution

Things are definitely happening...Agent Smith and I had a meeting with a powerful consulting team who spelled out for us everything we do not know about starting a restaurant. The same night I met with III about his desires to put forward a restaurant team. Just the day before I met with myself and reminded me how much I wanted a brewery in my future. Will a sportslounge be a path towards that goal? I'm hoping that this book will answer some of my questions:

I plan on a full book report as soon as I finish the read. I am currently trying to figure out how to a) make this picture a link to this guys blog, and b) add links to the side of my blog. I'm html htmzzzzz.

Introducing...

My first villain beer is complete! I hope Supermom is pleased with her nemesis. Upon tasting on Saturday I am pleased with the evilness of beer containing no alcohol.

Thanks to key-z and pee-money too. Zombiebrewz...what do you think?

Kontinuing Krypton

I'm finally getting around to my tasting notes on the other three beers brewed by Supermom's pops. Here they are, from too brief to overly wordy.

Amber: Over-carbonated. It didn't overflow, but would have if I had poured the entire beer in the glass. Even the bottle itself filled up with head after pouring. After it retracted it stuck around in a sort of weak form. The flavor is delicious and tinny (that's all I wrote?!?). Full-bodied, filled my mouth pleasantly.

Red: Funny how this carbonation thing is so inconsistent. The brews go from perfect (grain beer from previous post) to too much (see above), to a bit thin, as in this red beer. I'd like to know how to control that. I'd guess that the amount of sugar vs specific gravity would have a good deal to do with that. I'd also guess that Jor-el put the same amount of priming sugar into each of these batches, as I have always done. That would account for the inconsistent levels in differing brews. The flavor of this beer is wonderful. It has a bit of that stingy, metallic flavor I expect from a red beer. All that plus real body and full finish. Back in college when I was drinking all that Leiney's Red I would have wanted it to taste like this beer. Too bad it never did.

Brown Ale: Since my critiques tend toward carbonation levels, I'll start there again: perfect this time! Especially at the outset. I poured straight into my Duvel taster and the head bubbled up, pushing the limits of the lip of the glass, without cascading over. The head slowly dissipated and carbonation stayed strong till the end. The flavor is dominated by a pleasant nuttiness. A flash of bitterness hits the back of the tongue initially, followed by a bit of malt flavor, and the beer finishes quite bitter. This is a great ale! Not what I expected from a brown, I'd have to say. It has none of the sticky sweetness found in others, I am relieved to say.

All in all, Krypton is putting out some of the best homebrews in my world. An import I hope to see a lot more of.

Montreal invades California

Last night Pee-Money and I hiked across Berkeley campus on a misty June 1st to check out Arcade Fire at the Greek Theater. Colin Stetson, high school classmate and avaunt-guard saxophone king, is now playing with them. He used his whole arsenal of instruments, including French horn and bass clarinet. The show was great! All 10-12 of them are into every tune, singing along whether or not there is a microphone in front of them. Halfway through the set they played a rendition of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" that I felt was the highlight of the night. At one point towards the end of the night, Winn, during a song break, said to the audience, "The fucking fog broke my amp. Thanks a lot, assholes!" He then rambled on about foggy days and sunny days for a bit then exclaimed, "Eh, shut up and play the hits already!" It was a fun moment, then they immediately broke into "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)." The last song of the set was "Rebellion (Lies)," a predictable and appropriate choice. After the song was over, a large portion of the audience kept the sing-a-long chorus going for a couple minutes until they returned to the stage, no easy feat for several thousand non-singers to achieve. The encore was two songs, a heartfelt homage to his Grandfather who is buried in San Francisco followed by a raucous rendition of "Wake Up."

Oh yeah, beer: we each had two $7 plastic bottles of Anchor Steam. Bargain!!

Beer Minus Alcohol = Still Fun

Today I am subtracting alcohol from Supermom's IPA, hence making it Supermom's "Foe" IPA. I am partially making this method up as I go, due to the shortage of detailed instructions online. Apparently not many homebrewers are actually interested in brewing beer without alcohol. Funny. I also asked the grumpy old dude at the Oak Barrel beer supply store about brewing non-alcoholic beer, and he told me it was thought of as very difficult to do well. So if I fail miserably I'll at least be in large company.

First, I took my fully-fermented but only partially hopped beer and racked it back into the brewkettle, which brought me to unexpected hurdle #1: my brew kettle is only almost 5 gallons. I'm used to boiling 2 1/2 gallons at a time. I grabbed another pot and switched over towards the end, which ended up being a good idea, because I avoided getting more sludge in my finished beer from the bottom of the fermenter. I will probably end up dumping that last couple pints of sludgy beer. Sad but better than picking sediment out of your teeth.

As the beer heated up towards 180 degrees, it got pretty foamy, threatening to overflow a few times. Stirring only made it worse. My plan was to bring it back to a full boil in order to throw some cascade hops in for aroma, then back the heat back down. Now I'm thinking that a full boil with a full pot will result in a hot and sticky situation. Instead I am going to attempt the hop tea approach. I will steep the hops in boiled water then add the water at the end of this unfermentation process.

To make I used 1 1/2 oz of cascade pellets wrapped (perhaps too firmly) in cheesecloth, plus a small handful of dried out whole crystal hop flowers. The resulting tea was somewhat aromatic, and tasted slightly bitter. Hope it adds something.

After 40 minutes of 180 degree temperatures on the stovetop, I took the beer off, added the tea and cooled down the now near beer with my sanitized copper coil. I'm being extra careful with sanitation today. Usually I am a bit more carefree, confident that the alcohol would kill most bacteria that would sneak through. My last hurdle before bottling was that it takes For-effing-EVER for 5 gallons of liquid to cool down to 75 degrees, the acceptable temperature for pitching yeast. Since the re-boil killed off any old yeast, I had to wait to pitch again along with 3/4 cup corn sugar in order for these 20 or so double duece bottles to have any fizzyspritzer to them.

Now it is time for the finger crossing. Will the bottles explode? Will the yeast survive? Will there be any hop aroma? Will the flavor be alright? Did the alcohol go away? Will it taste anything like beer at all?!? I'll try not to get my hopes up too high this week.